microbudgeter.com

Name Change

The site, the brand, everything is in the process of migrating over to microbudgeter.com. The domain churchfilms.com will be valid for at least another year or so, if not longer. If the following is TLDR, skip to the bottom for the store or the blog.

This switch has been a long time coming, and I'm making the jump now. Some of you have already noticed incremental changes across the web. Here's why:

Reason 1: When I started my business, the original model was to create thematic videos for churches since most of them are woefully under-resourced, and most church videos are awful. The name was meant to be indicative of its service. Thing is, I didn't know anything about business when I started and I bombed at that endeavor more epically than Charlton Heston splitting the Red Sea. I no longer do this service for churches.

Reason 2: I'm solicited by people for random requests that have nothing to do with the mission or vision of this site, the most recent one was an invite to attend a vacation bible school as a parent or something. It was a mass message, and I wish I could say it was the only one of its kind. When you have the name "Church" in your business, it generates a lot of interesting proposals... which leads to →

Reason 3: While I firmly believe in the original definition of church (not a building, but a movement of people), it conjures up a lot of grief for a lot of people. I had a bandmate back in the day who was absolutely burned by the institution of "church" and is to this day staunchly atheistic. We got along famously (why wouldn't we!), and even once admitted Jesus of Nazareth seemed like a respectable guy with some sound teaching. Movies like God's Not Dead woefully pain me (production, dialogue, etc. aside) when the vast majority of its viewership is made up of the "church" crowd. I make no apologies for that statement. If it ruffles your feathers, great, I invite you to join me to do something about it. I want to see our generation of microbudget filmmakers dig their heels in, get some grit, and tell stories that reach beyond the Sunday 10a crowd. Without rambling any further here, I'll summarize and say I will still teach microbudget filmmaking based on Godly principles for those fellow microbudget filmmakers who want to tell stories of hope without being cheesy or self-serving. I love Jesus, I love blessing people, and I'm not afraid to share that on any medium or in person because...

The mission and vision remain unchanged:

Mission: I want to encourage others and bring honor to the Almighty in everything that I do with film and video.

Vision: My goal is to take the first 11 minutes of my tv pilot and seek out decision-makers who can further the conversation about developing it into a show. If my team and I can do that, then we can teach 100,000 other microbudgeters how to do the same thing so that we might tell stories of hope to millions if not billions. In the meantime, this site will be a resource to microbudgeters who are struggling with quoting, landing, and leading 4- and 5-figure shoots.